Wisconsin projections

A quick word on what to expect tonight: Cruz is likely to win Wisconsin, and may do so by nearly double digits. Our delegate projection shows him wining around 43% of the vote, with a delegate breakdown of Cruz 30, Trump 9, and Kasich 6. Trump and Kasich will depend on winning Congressional districts. While Kasich will likely do well in blue districts near Milwaukee and Madison, it’s isn’t unreasonable to expect Trump to underperform the projection above if he’s lagging behind Cruz so far in the statewide tally. This projection has trump ending up short of the 1,237 delegates he needs by around 40. The key to watch for will be whether Trump picks up fewer than 9 delegates. If he does, expect “Trump has lost momentum” stories to increase through New York.

On the Democratic side, our projection shows Sanders winning by 10 points, taking 47 delegates to Clinton’s 39 to chip away another 8 delegates into her 200-delegate lead. That, however, won’t be the story if he wins by such a margin. The story will be whether Clinton can hold on to the 10-point margin she currently enjoys in New York. If she does, she’ll net 23 delegates and mostly erase Sanders’ gains over the past few weeks and effectively cut off any chance he has of catching her in the pledged delegate count. Sanders knows this, and is investing heavily in both Wisconsin and New York to keep his campaign alive. The key to this race will be whether Sanders captures more than 55 percent of the vote. Doing so will give him a decent delegate margin in the state, and probably signal more difficulty for Clinton in New York.